“Our colleagues are doing everything they can to ensure our community stores have enough food and goods for everyone,” said Central England Co-op chief executive Debbie Robinson.

“We want to ask everyone who visits us to be kind and treat each other with care, compassion and respect.

“If you’re able to say thank you to our colleagues when you see them, we are sure they would really appreciate the support at this time. Please be kind and respectful to everyone around you.

“I also want to send a big thank you to all of our colleagues working in our stores and homes. You are doing an amazing job helping to feed the nation and I cannot thank you enough for going above and beyond for our communities. Be safe and thank you.”

The Co-op is also implementing a temporary limit of two of every product “to help maintain stock levels.” It reassured customers that there are no issues with its “robust supply lines” and that shops are getting daily delivers.

What are supermarkets changing and what are their opening hours?

Further measures announced by UK supermarkets include:

Sainsbury’s: It has set aside the first hour of trading in every supermarket from Thursday for elderly and vulnerable customers. Customers with disabilities or aged over 70 will also have priority access to online delivery slots, while cafes, meat, fish and pizza counters will close to prioritise freight capacity for essentials (Sainsbury’s opening hours here).

Iceland: Most stores will dedicate their first two hours’ trading to the elderly and vulnerable. CEO Tarsem Dhaliwal also urged customers to “be considerate” to staff (Iceland opening hours here).

Tesco: It will close all counter services and cut its 24-hour stores’ opening hours from 6am to 10pm, with overnight staff focusing on restocking stores and supporting online groceries. Vulnerable and elderly shoppers will have priority from 9am to 10am (Tesco opening hours here).

Waitrose: It has “reluctantly’ introduced limits per shopper on some of its most in-demand items online “to help ensure that our products are shared fairly.” Its website went down temporarily on Wednesday morning, and hundreds of John Lewis staff have been moved into Waitrose teams (Waitrose opening hours here).